> My other concern as previously noted is that it does not seem to me
> to make logical sense to have "Date today" answer a duration with a
> start time of yesterday at 5 hours before midnight. Maybe that is not
> important in practice but it does not feel right to me.

You can go back to localized dates with:

   Date localize

However, "globalized" make perfect sense to me and I would think they
would for you too in the context of the manufacturing system..